So much for freedom of thought at universities

[marc]

Sounds like how Christians are being oppressed by not being allowed to force their beliefs on everyone else.

 

[untermensche]

If you give an opinion, that is speech.

If you give the same opinion over and over to a trapped audience, to the point it disrupts the speech of others, that is conduct.

 

[KeepTalking]

She should be there because she is interested in the guy, not because he is paying for her lobster.

And because she was interested in the guy before they went on the date, she is now obligated to provide him with sex? Most people date to determine of the level of interest they had in a person initially bears out, and if there are further commonalities that may lead to a relationship.

What do you think of women like these: Toronto Woman Serial Dates to Get Free Restaurant Meals and Blogs About It

I think guys should be more discriminating, and only ask out women that they think they may have something in common with.

She seems to have the same attitude like you

"guys should feel honoured by this open invitation to date me."

I.e. she believes her very presence is enough to justify the "price of admission".

Then the guys who asked her out obviously knew virtually nothing about her. Get to know the person, at least a little bit, then ask them out to get to know them better. But, and I cannot stress this enough, never expect that the fact that you paid for dinner obligates her to have sex with you. That can only end badly for everyone involved.

 

[ronburgundy]

P1: "Student banned for free thought"
P2: "Um, no he was disrupting the class and asked to stop"
.

Nothing presented indicates that he "disrupted the class" which implies he impeded the purpose of the discussions or assignments. The Prof never uses such language and clearly would if it were valid, because that charge would get the Prof off the hook. All comments by the prof and other students show he was kicked out of the "conference" (definition: meeting for discussion) portion of the class where the entire point is for people to discuss their views on the topics that he discussed. They simply did not like his viewpoints, and there is no indication that he ever said anything indicating he didn't think rape was a problem, only that he disagreed with specific statistical claims, theoretical assumptions related to "rape culture", and policy views of his classmates.

Here are some revealing comments by his classmates:

"True upset students when he said that it was understandable that the Holocaust happened given that people are not often taught to question systems of oppression, and other , and made other comments about race and class."

IOW, his classmates got upset because they are too stupid to understand that he was attacking the holocaust and the authoritarianism that gave rise to it, and instead thought that understanding why something terrible happened is a from of condoning it. We've seen that kind of logic around here.

"Rape culture is indisputable and [True’s] words and actions are deeply upsetting."

That is a close-minded religious stance seeking to stifle intellectual challenges with claims of indisputable truth that make all questioning inappropriate. Creationists would and have said the exact same thing to stifle conversations of evolution.
Only if the prof made any discussion of rape off limits due to it being an upsetting topic would True's actions be inappropriate and "disruptive".
This smells a lot like honest intellectual disagreement bring shut down in a college course, by those with a prevailing view claiming infallible truth and using their personal experience as bogus grounds to claim that a challenge to an idea is a personal attack.
Rape is an upsetting topic. IF the goal is to avoid people getting upset, then the topic is what she be banned from classroom discussions.

 

[dismal]

Yes, exactly. There seems to be no particular reason for a professor teaching the art and humanities of classical Greece to disrupt the class by citing bogus campus rape statistics.

I see you attended the course. Because you claim to know exactly what was said and who brought up the subject in the first place.

I take no position on what happened in that classroom.

But I don't have to know what happened in that classroom to know it's possible to teach about the arts and humanities of classical Greece without citing bogus campus rape statistics.

 

[Nexus]

If rape culture is indisputable then everyone claiming rape statistics are bogus are trolling this thread, should they be moderated for violation of TOS?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I see you attended the course. Because you claim to know exactly what was said and who brought up the subject in the first place.

I take no position on what happened in that classroom.

But I don't have to know what happened in that classroom to know it's possible to teach about the arts and humanities of classical Greece without citing bogus campus rape statistics.

So he taught that and a student didn't bring it up as a side discussion? I look forward to seeing you back up your assertion.

 

[dismal]

I take no position on what happened in that classroom.

But I don't have to know what happened in that classroom to know it's possible to teach about the arts and humanities of classical Greece without citing bogus campus rape statistics.

So he taught that and a student didn't bring it up as a side discussion? I look forward to seeing you back up your assertion.

I didn't notice that I had made any assertion other than it's possible to teach the arts and humanities of classical Greece without citing bogus campus rape statistics.

Do you disagree with this assertion, which I actually did make?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So he taught that and a student didn't bring it up as a side discussion? I look forward to seeing you back up your assertion.

I didn't notice that I had made any assertion other than it's possible to teach the arts and humanities of classical Greece without citing bogus campus rape statistics.

Do you disagree with this assertion, which I actually did make?

Well, it was likely assumed that your post had a modicum of relevance to the topic of the thread you were posting in.

 

[dismal]

I didn't notice that I had made any assertion other than it's possible to teach the arts and humanities of classical Greece without citing bogus campus rape statistics.

Do you disagree with this assertion, which I actually did make?

Well, it was likely assumed that your post had a modicum of relevance to the topic of the thread you were posting in.

It does in that this is a thread about events in a class about the arts and humanities of classical Greece and involves the citing of bogus rape statistics in said class.

As for what actually happened in the class room I have no idea. The kid could have been the world's most disruptive doucher for all I know.

But one thing I do know for sure is that it's possible to teach the arts and humanities of classical Greece without citing bogus campus rape statistics.

 

[ksen]

I see you attended the course. Because you claim to know exactly what was said and who brought up the subject in the first place.

I take no position on what happened in that classroom.

ok

But I don't have to know what happened in that classroom to know it's possible to teach about the arts and humanities of classical Greece without citing bogus campus rape statistics.

wait, that's a position

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I take no position on what happened in that classroom.

ok

But I don't have to know what happened in that classroom to know it's possible to teach about the arts and humanities of classical Greece without citing bogus campus rape statistics.

wait, that's a position

Not THAAAAT classroom, a hypothetical one that cites bogus rape statistics. You know the one that Pancho Villa the Unicorn teaches.

 

[dismal]

I take no position on what happened in that classroom.

ok

But I don't have to know what happened in that classroom to know it's possible to teach about the arts and humanities of classical Greece without citing bogus campus rape statistics.

wait, that's a position

I don't know exactly what happened in that classroom but there does not seem to be much dispute among the various people that were there that campus rape statistics were discussed. But my point would still stand even if facts later came out to demonstrate they weren't

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Well considering how often and easily discussions right here get derailed and rerouted (this very thread in fact) I have not trouble at all taking a totally plausible that a humanities discussion could wind up talking a campus rape stats.

But then again, I pay attention to what other people actually type.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you give an opinion, that is speech.

If you give the same opinion over and over to a trapped audience, to the point it disrupts the speech of others, that is conduct.

Or if you give that opinion in a manner that is unacceptably disruptive for the situation, it is likewise conduct. (For example, the kids screaming Bible verses next to occupied classrooms while at recess.)

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

If only it was an isolated incident. But unfortunately US universities have become the refuge of left-wing radicals.

You weren't alive during the '60's, were you?

 

[Ojuice5001]

I'm actually for legal prostitution, I just think guys that can't get laid without paying for it are pathetic.

But do you think that it should be morally frowned upon, in the same way as sexual assault? Your characterization of red pillers leads to the old (and politically incorrect) argument that there are men who consider rape and prostitution to be substitute goods (as an economist would put it), and therefore, they will commit fewer rapes if prostitution is available and an attractive option to them. This doesn't imply that all men are like this, or that all men who hire prostitutes are like this, or that all rapists could have been prevented by better access to prostitution. And it doesn't imply that rape is morally and legally excusable if the rapist had no option of getting sex in any other way, although it does imply that this unfortunate situation should have been prevented if it were feasible. It is consistent with thinking that prostitution is still so bad it should be illegal--with a penalty lesser than sexual assault, of course--but that's not your position. And once you've admitted that prostitution isn't inherently bad enough to be illegal, surely you would want it to be as good as possible for the client, the prostitute, and anyone else who is affected by it. And prostitution isn't as bad when clients and prostitutes don't suffer from a moral stigma from themselves, their partners, and the wider society.

Sure, you want to advise people to always choose a better option if one is available, but if there are clients and prostitutes for whom this is the best option, you want to advise them to just choose the best option available for now, keep working for a better situation, and don't feel that we're frowning on you. In fact, frowning on them is probably a bad solution even if they aren't working on a better option: If they think prostitution is something to be content with, or they wrongly self-assess that they can't do any better, then treat it as a rational disagreement. If they rightly self-assess that they could do no better, then just tell them to keep on living their lives as well as they can. And if they realize that they could do better than prostitution, but irrationally choose not to, then they probably need something more compassionate than a moral denunciation. Save the moral denunciation for those who are committing abuses, or at least who are sorely lacking in benevolence; and realize that plenty of clients and prostitutes don't fall into either of these moral categories.

According to this perspective, sending a message that prostitution should be frowned upon is the same kind of mistake as advocating "abstinence-only sex education." In fact, it is advocating "abstinence-only" for a certain category of men. If there are men choosing between prostitution and sexual assault, we surely want them to choose prostitution. If they are choosing between prostitution and a good relationship with a non-prostitute, then they probably won't be confused enough to make the wrong choice. If they are choosing between prostitution and a bad relationship, then you should be open to the possibility that the bad relationship is worse for everyone involved than the prostitution, and the man should be open to the possibility that prostitution is worse than the relationship. If they are choosing between prostitution and celibacy, and prostitution wouldn't in fact make them happier, then they will find this out once they try prostitution. If they could be living a sex life characterized by casual sex gained by seducing non-prostitutes, then it mostly depends on whether the non-prostitute casual sex partner really are made any happier than the prostitutes who at least got the money they were trying to get.

If prostitution would make both the client and the prostitute happier than if the transaction didn't take place, then they should choose prostitution. The only reason for strongly insisting that all clients need to quit, and no one should ever start, is the possibility that it would consistently make the prostitutes unhappy even if the client is happy. If it's only the badly behaved clients who make the prostitutes unhappy, and anyone can behave well given that he's trying, then we should encourage clients to behave well. If there are men who have enough self-control to stay away from prostitutes, but not enough treat them respectfully once they're with a prostitute, and they know who they are, then advise them to quit, and advise their fellows, who can behave respectfully, to do so.

All of this assumes that clients will respond to moral sanctions, and that may be the problem. Some people think that clients won't respond to moral appeals, but stamping it out by force is effective enough to be worth doing. Maybe someone else thinks that making it illegal won't work, and moral appeals won't work either, but if you ridicule them, that will make them stop. Although, let's be clear. If you insult someone for being unable to get laid without prostitution, then he's equally pathetic whether he hires prostitutes or goes without it. Either way, he lacks the qualities that could get him laid with a non-prostitute. Or maybe you're counting on the possibility that he won't be that logical, and will merely feel a sense of shame that keeps him from going to prostitutes. At most, he could avoid refuse to engage in the behavior because it's a more visible sign that he can't get laid; but then many of them just lie about how they hire prostitutes, and in many cases also lie about the fact that they aren't getting laid by non-whores. I want to be as fully open about the fact that I'm a client as possible, but I may be unusual.

The other possibility all clients make the typical prostitute unhappy (by their personal effects on the prostitute), regardless of behavior and any other factor under his control. I don't believe that this is always or usually the case, or that it has to be the case even if it is that way under some unreformed ways of handling prostitution. (But if it were, then by all means advocate that the clients should quit.) Indeed, that's my whole problem with perspectives that don't distinguish between good clients and bad clients. I couldn't spend two minutes with a street prostitute and still think that such a distinction isn't real to them. I see them as having a fanatic desire to make sure that I treat them right, and my impression is that if I do treat them right, I'll be not merely "not as bad as the bad clients," but some kind of positive good. And they're the ones who are the most unhappy with their general situation, and the most prone to anger issues; surely if I were with a prostitute who is happy because she gets a higher price than I could afford to pay, it'd be even easier to get along with them.

This is my position. I can't get laid without prostitutes. I'm glad you don't think that prostitution should be removed with legal force. Maybe I shouldn't care that you think I'm pathetic, and maybe I shouldn't care about your moral judgments (if any, I'm actually writing this to ask you what is your moral judgment). But I must care about both, or I wouldn't be writing this post. Sure it's none of your business, but why should my understanding of the issue be limited to the insights of people whose business it is? Actually, my views are much more informed by the views of prostitutes (and it is their business) as well as my own thoughts. But hey, just because someone is an uninvolved observer doesn't mean that the involved people shouldn't listen to what the uninvolved observer has to say--quite likely, listen and disagree, but listen nonetheless. So I'd like you to clarify: Do you think it is ethically wrong to hire a prostitute? Do you think that the men who can't get laid without prostitution are merely unlucky, or lazy, or that they have some still worse character defect?

One problem with the word "pathetic" is that it once meant (as in its etymology) "so ineffective that you feel sorry for them." But it is so often used as a strong insult that it really seems that it's usually used when the speaker doesn't think that the pathetic person deserves to have someone feel sorry for them, and the speaker doesn't want to give the impression that he does feel sorry for them. So do you think that the clients are not only pathetic, but that society is right to morally them? (I have a hard time interpreting "frowned upon" in anything but a morally judgmental sense. On the other hand, you only said that society frowns upon it (and mentioned sexual assault immediately afterward), you didn't actually say that society was right to frown on these pathetic people or that you fully agree with society.) And do you think that men who can't get laid have an unfortunate problem that's not their fault, or that it is partly their fault for having ineffective habits (like being too lazy to learn what it takes and then do it, or choosing irrationally to trade off dating success against some lesser good), or that they have even worse personal flaws than these? And finally, what do you think is the useful message to send to men who can't get laid without prostitution and consider such to be an option? Even if you think their patheticness is a truth, it doesn't follow that it's useful to call them pathetic; so is it useful? I mean, I guess it only came up because you consider the red pillers to be both pathetic and morally despicable.

But that's just it. I'd like to ask whether you think most clients are contemptible misogynists. And if not, would it be fairer to have a clearer distinction between (1) the pathetic failures who are simply doing the best that they can in terms of trying to get the best sex partners the can and treating any sex partner he can get as well as he possibly can, or (2) the ones who could do better and are likely to be motivated by an insult, or (3) those who could do better but probably wouldn't respond to an insult by working harder, or (4) those who are not only failing, but deserve to be insulted in a sense that none of the others including (2) deserve, so that if you insult all of them and all suffer from the insult, but only 10% respond by improving the way a (2) would, the others still deserve to be the victims of such collateral damage. It is useful to insult the (2) and (4), but useless to insult the (1) and (3), so why not be clear about how you see the majority of men who can't get laid without prostitution, and clarify which of the four categories are the most common among them. By the way, it's fairly hard to tell whether (4) is more common than all others put together, or whether (1) is more common than all the others put together, etc. However, it is probably pretty clear that (2) is rarer than (3); that it's not that common that insulting someone is a good way to get them to improve. Most of the time, there are better ways to get someone to improve himself; for one thing, many (3)s wrongly believe themselves to be (1)s, so that just telling them to stop being pathetic won't help; or others don't believe they have a problem and could more dispassionately consider changing their mind if they weren't insulted; or even if they realize they need to work harder, there are other reasons why they might respond to a less hurtful form of motivation even if they realize that putting forth more effort would be much better than the contrary.

I also might want to debate, apart from the pragmatic reasons for/against stigmatizing the clients of prostitutes and purely in the disinterested pursuit of truth, the proposition that those who can't get laid without prostitution are pathetic. But for that, I would need a better definition of "pathetic." My dictionary says "Pitiably unsuccessful, ineffective, etc.," but dictionary definitions are often insufficient--for instance, "pitiable" has the same ambiguity as "pathetic" about whether anyone really does feel "pity" in the sense of thinking that there is something to be sad about that wouldn't have happened if the world were fair. I also haven't touched on the question of the men who could be in a relationship or be getting laid regularly by non-prostitutes, but who choose prostitutes. Should they be frowned upon in general, and are they generally pathetic?

 

[Derec]

If only it was an isolated incident. But unfortunately US universities have become the refuge of left-wing radicals.

You weren't alive during the '60's, were you?

And the 60's era radicals are still ensconced there!

 

[Derec]

Squirrel, my point was in response to Frikki saying that men who pay for sex are "pathetic" to which I replied that since contemporary dating and bar/club scene encourages men paying for women to spend time with them they are also paying for it in a sense, and thus are as pathetic as men who overtly pay for sex.

Hmmm, how do I put this? I don't know you, but there seems to be an attitude you are giving off. I do not see dating as a game and have plenty of dates.

Well good for you if you keep getting dates.

Because I have plenty of dates, I am confident and am happy to spend time with a beautiful woman just for the sake of enjoying each other's company. The last three dates I was on cost a total of $15. (Free concert, hike on the prairie, and ice cream. - Nothing that even comes close to breaking the bank.) Of those three, I liked two of them.

Where do you even meet so many women that you can find three to date? Especially since women who would accept a date that costs $5 on average are very rare.

(The other was a model who was obsessively complaining about food.)

No wonder if the food cost $2.50 per person.

Now that being said a woman definitely puts up stakes. It's so cute when they get all gussied up with push-up bras and make up to go for a hike.

"Silly" might be a better descriptor than "cute". I hope for her sake that she at least wore some sensible shoes and no heels ...
Also, aren't push-up bras false advertising? Kind of like stuffing a sock down your underpants.

They are also trying to impress the man who they are meeting. I'm just baffled at the negative attitude toward women I hear posted in this thread and it is why I recommend dropping it and adopting more of a breezy, "I am enjoying life" attitude. It makes for a better dating experience over, "crap, I have to pay an extra $25 for a woman who won't put out tonight".

Well if dating works for you, fine, but it certainly never worked for me. And it's difficult to enjoy dating if one is being taken advantage of.

Ahh, but they benefit the man too. The reason why women respond positively to gentlemen is the reason we all respond positively to gentlemen. They are displaying their intent and thoughtfulness. You can be a lazy brute, but gentlemen take the time to show they care and are committed to others. This works in all aspects of your life.

Women can get free food and entertainment out of dating. I would say that definitely benefits women much more so than men. It only benefits men if it leads to something, but then we are again at "paying for it".

- - - Updated - - -

I suspect that men who view buying a woman drinks or paying for the date as a "form of... paying for sex" are the ones not getting laid.

It is objectively speaking paying for sex if the woman sleeps with him and would not have given him the time of day if he didn't pay for her drink and/or dinner.
In that case there is a clear causal chain between paying and sex.

 

[Derec]

Not referring to Derec in any way whatsoever, but believing that buying a woman a drink or paying on a date means the guy has also bought himself some sex is an attitude that leads to date rapes.

Clearly unlike straight-up prostitution buying a woman a drink or paying for the date is no guarantee of anything. A man may even become victim of one of the mercenary women I posted above who go on dates for the sole purpose of eating free food. But still, if the act of paying for drinks/food successfully leads to sex how is it not "paying for sex"?

- - - Updated - - -

What century do you live in

21st. Gender roles do not change quickly, at least not those that benefit women.